Thursday, October 30, 2008

Put 'supply side' nonsense to the test! Demand that you be paid in gold bullion. If right wing ideology and theories were correct, your bosses shouldn't have a problem with it. They will not accede to your demands because they know that right wing economics is pure bullshit!

The right wing erred big time when it tried to tar Obama with a canard, accusing him of advocating Marxism by 'spreading the wealth around'. But it has been the GOP since Ronald Reagan's improvident tax cut which 'spread the wealth around' upward to the top one percent of the population. That increasingly tiny elite has since 'spread the wealth around' among their various investments, none of which create wealth.

Right wing 'theories' are best summed up with the term -- supply side economics! Supply side economics, derisively called 'trickle down theory', is utter nonsense but sounded credible enough to justify Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982 and similar instruments by which 'wealth is spread around' upward to about one percent of the nation's total population.

'Supply side theory' was and remains a GOP fairy tale designed to provide a credible sounding rationalization for the big whopping tax cuts which benefit only the very, very wealthy, the 'pay off' for their support. The nation was told a bald faced lie that the 'tax cuts' were necessary to 'stimulate investment' and that the results would 'trickle down' to working folk. Utter nonsense! There is absolutely no evidence in support of it. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, called the policy a 'trojan horse' supported by a 'noisy faction of Republicans'.

In reality, supply side tax cuts routinely precede recessions that are characterized by decreases in investment --effects opposite to the stated purpose. Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1982, for example, was followed by an economic depression of some two years, the deepest depression since the crash of 1929.

The culprit is 'supply side' economics from which is derived the nonsense that the right wing tries to pin on Barack Obama, specifically, the charge that he is in favor of 'spreading the wealth around'. But what is 'supply side economics' if not an attempt by the right wing to justify the spreading of wealth UPWARD to those already rich, those who don't need it? The right wing is absolutely dead wrong in several ways:

Supply side 'tax cuts' have never, ever trickled down. In every instance, the rich get richer and everyone else poorer.

It is predicted that revenues increase with supply side tax cuts but that has never, ever happened.

Tax cuts were expected to end recessions and stimulate the economy. In every instance, the opposite has been true.

Specifically, if 'supply side' bunkum were true, the economy would have expanded as a result of the Bush tax cuts. Not only did that NOT happen, the economy contracted. This happened during the Ronald Reagan/Bush Sr years. It's happened again.

This election is about one thing, and one thing only — it’s all about the economy. In a Presidential race that was hyped to be a rebuke on the War in Iraq, instead it has turned out to be a rebuke on the economy. More bad news for George W. Bush, John McCain, and the Republican Party today, the US economy has contracted at .3 percent in the third quarter, a rather large decline.

I've been been debunking supply-side idiocy for years. The time has come to take off the gloves. Let's put this elitist, right wing nonsense to the test.

If GOP economics were anything but elitist rationalizations designed by focus groups to sound plausible, then your employer (most likely a big corporation dominated by right wingers, fascists, and, of course, Republicans) should not object to your DEMAND that you be paid in gold bullion. You've done the work. You deserve to be paid in something that is actually worth something, something equal in value to the work that you have done. By 'creating wealth' with the act of 'work', you deserve to be paid with something other than a worthless piece of paper that has declined in value during every GOP administration.

In the meantime, a dwindling and increasingly hysterical right wing is screaming about how Barack Obama is advocating the 'spreading around of wealth' which, they claim, is a Marxist idea. That's nonsense. Many indigenous peoples, including some Native American tribes, beat Marx to the idea and, until their various paradises were mucked up by Europeans with capitalistic idea everything worked out very well. Before he screwed it all up, Columbus himself described a society that was very nearly paradise. No one was thinking 'inside the box' of capitalism, supply-side nonsense, and all the idiocy and claptrap that goes with it. The world was new and fresh and worked.

The Arawaks, for example, were doing fine in a 'Utopia' of their creation until they were utterly wiped out by Christopher Columbus. Their society was credibly described by Howard Zinn in his "People's History of the United States". It was literally an 'ideal society'.

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts.

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"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts." The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold?

The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need . . . and as many slaves as they ask." He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities."

Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.

Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed "no more embarrassment than animals." Columbus later wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

Like idiots and fools throughout history, Bush is cursed with the unintended consequences of his idiocy. Bush certainly did not intend to prove Marx correct, nor did Bush intend to call attention to Zinn's great history. Bush did not intend that the 700 billion dollar bailout of his cronies would prove Karl Marx to be absolutely correct. Marx said: "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his need!" Typically, Bush screwed even that up. What Bush has done is to expose the GOP modus operandi best summed up this way:

"From those who can least afford it TO those who did absolutely nothing to create it, did not earn it, and do NOT deserve it"!

The right wing, thus, pathetically and ineffectively reduces its anti-Obama campaign to a phrase --'spread the wealth around' --a practice which they had hoped could be confined to their elite base of greedy fat cats.

The GOP have always justified this 'transfer of wealth' upward with an article of GOP faith: 'supply side economics'. I propose that we put the GOP's only faith to the test. I propose that if 'supply side economics' were in any way true or valid, then your employer should not object to your demand that you be paid in gold bullion.

Your employer will probably refuse to do so. That's because the currency that he had duped you into accepting is absolutely without any intrinsic value and, lately, it's probably worthless. As the bailout has proven --money was literally created out of thin air by the central banks. The bubble popped. Your employer will not pay you in gold for several reasons:

He doesn't have any in reserve.

If he tried to pay you in gold, he could not purchase, with cash on hand, enough gold to pay all his employees.

Eventually, all workers would demand gold and when only a few could be paid, the economy would collapse to its pre-bubble state.

But --if 'supply side economics' had been in any way valid, employers would be creating wealth, enough to pay you in currency that is actually worth something. Alas, however, the 'white man' has run out of indigenous people to enslave or slaughter in hopes of finding enough gold to pay its workers who --alone --create wealth!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Anyone who can watch 'The Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and fail to see the GOP is most probably a 'pod person' themselves. This '50s classic has been remade three times because it is the most accurate parable of our times. When the original film was released, many made the analogy to the efforts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy who sought a 'commie' under every sofa and every bed. It was an age of paranoia. For me, though a child, it was clear: the 'pod people' were the McCarthyites. They were the people who had been changed. Especially today --it is the GOP that has sold its soul for war booty, riches, and conquest.

Following is the Wiki entry for the classic Sci-Fi thriller --The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 science fiction film based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954). It stars Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, and Carolyn Jones. The screenplay was adapted from Finney's novel by Daniel Mainwaring, along with an uncredited Richard Collins, and was directed by Don Siegel.

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Set in the fictional town of Santa Mira, California (actually shot in Sierra Madre), the plot centers on Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), a local doctor, who finds a rash of patients accusing their loved ones of being impostors. Another patient is a former sweetheart of his; recent divorcee Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), who tells him that her cousin, Wilma, has this same strange fear about Uncle Ira.

Assured at first by the town psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kaufman (Larry Gates), that the cases are nothing but "epidemic mass hysteria", Bennell soon discovers, with the help of his friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan), that the townspeople are in fact being replaced by simulations grown from plantlike pods; perfect physical duplicates who kill and dispose of their human victims. The Pod People are indistinguishable from normal people, except for their utter lack of emotion. The pod people work together to secretly spread more pods — which grew from "seeds drifting through space for years" — in order to replace the entire human race.

The film climaxes with Bennell and Driscoll attempting to escape the pod people, intending to warn the rest of humanity. They hide; Driscoll falls asleep and is subverted. With the pod people close behind, a seemingly crazed Bennell runs onto the highway frantically screaming of the alien force which has overrun Santa Mira to the passing motorists and (in a moment that could almost be considered a breaking of the 4th wall) looks into the camera and yells, "They're here already! You're next!"

The GOP is a cult. It's values are subversive, often hostile to 'human' values. Very early in life, I became aware that there were 'sects' within the GOP that were opposed to the teaching of the so-called 'humanities' in high schools and colleges as well as various 'sub-plots' of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, specifically, what they called 'secular' humanism.

As allegory, the 'invasion' aspect is just a device. What made this film so 'scary' is that there are people who look just like you but, in fact, are alien and seditious --as good a description of the modern GOP as I've ever seen.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Even prominent Republicans now concede that George W. Bush presided over the destruction of America, the subversion of the Constitution, defiance of the rule of law. Bush did this by way of two stolen elections. This article reveals how they did it and proposes a 'fool proof' method by which elections can be made theft proof!

Princeton University has demonstrated how easily the GOP may 'hack' voting machines in key precincts, how simple it is to upload malicious code that turns votes for Democrats into votes for the GOP! It not enough to simply make this conduct punishable as 'high treason'. It can be prevented --thus sparing a guilty gopper hard time in a GOP 'corporate' prison guarded by Blackwater.

A team from Princeton University set out to prove once and for all the Diebold voting machines could be hacked easily. Not only did they prove this to be a fact, they created a Diebold specific virus that spreads from voting machine to voting machine.

You can find out more information about the work they did and download a full PDF report on the security vulnerability at this link http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ This video just reinforces exactly how vulnerable these machines are, and once you take into consideration the fact that these machines are effectively controlling the American Election, it looks even more scary! As always, for the latest news from the world of technology, gadgets, electronics and hacking visit: HACK

With eight days to go before the presidential election, a report has been released by Princeton University and other groups that sharply criticizes the e-voting machines used in New Jersey and elsewhere as unreliable and potentially prone to hacking.

The 158-page report, which was ordered by a New Jersey judge as part of an ongoing four-year legal fight over the machines, says the e-voting machines can be "easily hacked" in about seven minutes by anyone with basic computer knowledge. Such hacking activity could enable fraudulent firmware to steal votes from one candidate and give them to another, the report said.

The report comes amid news stories in at least three states -- West Virginia, Texas and Tennessee -- where voters have told local election officials that they believe the e-voting machines they used tried to "flip" their votes to other candidates.

The AVC machines can be hacked by installing fraudulent software contained in a replacement chip that can be installed on the main circuit board, according to the report. Such a part replacement is very difficult to detect, it noted.

Andrew Appel, a Princeton University computer science professor who is one of the authors of the report, said that such security vulnerabilities cause doubts about the accuracy and reliability of the machines.

A permanent fix must be written into US Federal law. Such a law would not merely establish penalties for the guilty GOPPERS who have indulged this practice to the utter destruction of Democracy itself. Federal law should prescribe a 'hack' proof system with checks and balances. In other words, we must run 'hack proof' elections.

Here's how it works:

When a citizen records a vote, the machine spits out TWO identical paper receipts indicating how the citizen voted.

The citizen looks over the receipt while STILL in the booth; if everything is OK, he presses the final SUBMIT key/button on the voting machine itself! If everything is NOT ok, he protests the result and threatens to call the 'election cops' if nothing is done.

The voter now has TWO IDENTICAL RECEIPTS! He/she leaves one behind in a big 'lock box' designed to receive all paper ballots, i.e, one of the two identical receipts.

The VOTER retains the second receipt against the eventuality that the election is challenged.

If the election is contested, a hand count is conducted of all deposited 'receipts' left behind in the big lock box.

It is unlikely, that the voter would be required to supply the final receipt. Any discrepancy between the paper ballots and the machine means one thing and one thing only: the machine was 'hacked'.

It is conceivable that the 'receipt' be machine readable. In that case, a hand count of all receipts would be mandatory if the results of the machine do not match the count of deposited receipts left in a 'lock box'.

A final point: a new federal law should prescribe the above remedy as a standard in all federal elections. US Codes should create the crime of 'election fraud' to be defined in numerous clauses and specifically mandating the above procedure. The 'hacking' of any machine utilized in a national election should be addressed in the law which would make such 'hacking' a federal offense with severe mandatory hard jail time!

In the meantime, John McCain is predicting he will win the election by winning Pennsylvania! This tells me that McCain is planning to steal the election just as Bush stole Ohio.

Did Tom Brokaw accidentally spill the beans about the vote-rigging in 2004 in Ohio?

Brokaw: "Four years ago, I interviewed President Bush at a time when it looked like he may be in trouble against John Kerry — the final weekend of the campaign. I showed him a map. He said, 'Oh, I just don't do that. Karl Rove does that.' As soon as the interview was over, he said, 'I'll win here,' and pointed to southeastern Ohio. Where will you win, if you win?

Why was Bush so convinced he was going to win Ohio?

Even though he was down in all the polls, and was way down in all the exit polling on Election Day?

And, more to the point, why is McCain still pouring so many resources and so much time into Pennsylvania?

With any luck, McCain will be sorely disappointed. It may no longer be possible to win the White House by winning --or stealing --a couple of the so-called 'battleground' states --Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida. Because Obama has many more ways than Kerry to get to 270, the outright theft of the election also becomes increasingly problematic for the GOP.

We can only hope that Obama will have his 'detectives' out in force. Support efforts to round up and imprison GOP vote cheats, frauds and other criminals! Take back America!

Monday, October 27, 2008

The bailout is the biggest overt theft in history. Only healthy banks get funding --so why do they get a bailout? The 'bailout' is yet another monumental instance in which 'wealth is spread around' to those who do not need it, did not create it, did not earn it, and did not do anything productive to create it! Why doesn't Bush and his 'base' just load up a convoy of armored trucks at Ft. Knox --then drive like hell to the border?

Most big recipients of 'bailout monies' are using the 'bailout' to gobble up smaller, less favored banks. In simpler times, we might have called them the "Savings and Loan". In "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart, it was called the "Building and Loan". If you've seen this classic film, you will recall that when the Great Depression came, it was the "Building and Loan" that was faced with collapse --not Potter, the richest man in town who sought to own it all.

Several major U.S. banks are leaning toward spending a portion of their federal rescue money on acquiring other financial firms rather than for issuing new loans, the primary purpose of the government's $250 billion initiative to invest in banks.

About 10 financial institutions belonging to the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents 100 of the nation's largest financial services firms, are also considering making acquisitions with the money, said Scott Talbott, the group's senior vice president.

There is a growing consensus among Treasury and other federal officials that allowing healthy banks to use the money to acquire banks in jeopardy of failing could stabilize the economy and bolster confidence in banks. This could also save money for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. confirmed yesterday that some banks may use the capital they receive through the Treasury program to buy weaker banks and that this could benefit the financial system.

Moreover --banks are not supposed to hoard monies! Banks are supposed to 'lend' money, right?

I caught up with Senator Dodd, and asked him what he was going to do if the loan situation didn’t improve. “All I can tell you is that we are going to have the bankers up here, probably in another couple of weeks and we are going to have a very blunt conversation,” he replied.

He continued: “If it turns out that they are hoarding, you’ll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay.”

Moreover, bailouts are supposed to restore confidence. This 'bailout' has had the opposite effect. Bush responses to the 'crisis' vary from day to day. As a result, the crisis now feeds upon itself, driven primarily by Bush's rhetoric and the market's negative response to it.

Because real wages have not been rising, the growth in consumer spending could only have been financed through borrowed money. Debt, which allows consumers to have cash on hand that hasn’t been earned or saved, has given Boobis Americanus the ability to live beyond his means, at least for a little while. And a great many have taken up this “pay later” lifestyle, accumulating a great many houses, cars, and other things.

A favored form of debt for funding extraneous purchases has been the home equity line. During the housing bubble, homes became virtual ATMs. Whereas home equity was once used for purposes of improving the home for the long-term, it became a source of quick cash for reckless buyers eager to turn their home into an instant showplace. First there’s the actual house, then comes the Martha Stewartization, followed by the furniture, the landscaping, the lighting, the additions, the appliances, and on and on.

The government’s mantra since the days of the New Deal has been the “right to own a home.” In the modern version of “the American Dream,” a starter home is treated as a humiliation, as everyone has the right to own a great, big home in an esteemed neighborhood, and preferably one of new construction and with all the bells and whistles. The term “being house poor” used to be a negative connotation. During the bubble it became a bragging right.

Even worse, home equity has been funding the purchase of everyday consumer durables, especially those items that tend to be discretionary in nature. Home equity has funded the kind of purchases that should be funded from earned, saved monies. A perpetually (and rising) line of credit induces consumers to “bite” at the availability of easy money at low rates, and thus they take the cash and spend their way to a perceived prosperity.

Other 'Presidents' in other times sought to restore the nation's confidence. The GOP has done the opposite. It subverted 'confidence' and tried to exploit the crisis. The 'healthy' banks and those already among the nation's very richest elite are making out like bandits while most Americans face the real prospect of losing their jobs, their homes and, perhaps, even their lives. The GOP doesn't have a bailout for them. The GOP has a bailout for its base, the richest one percent which owns 90 percent or more of the nation's total wealth. [See: The L-Curve]

One could start with Paulson himself, whose former bank stands to benefit handsomely from the bailout which he has authored. While at Goldman Sachs, Paulson amassed a personal fortune of $700 million.

The list continues:

According to Forbes magazine, Ken Lewis last year brought in a salary of $20.13 million, and his holdings of Bank of America stock are worth an estimated $112 million.

Jamie Dimon received a 2007 Christmas bonus of $14.5 million and holds $190 million in JPMorgan stock.

Lloyd Blankfein received a Christmas bonus of $68 million and his holdings of Goldman Sachs stock were worth $414.5 million last year.

Vikram Pandit received a $165 million signing bonus from Citigroup last year, together with a $2.7 million salary for a few months of work and $48 million in stock options.

John Mack received $41.8 million in compensation last year, and his 2007 holdings in Morgan Stanley stock were worth $220 million.

These firms’ stock, and particularly that of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, rose rapidly on news of the meeting with Paulson. Goldman stock rose 25 percent to $111 a share, and Morgan Stanley stock rose 87 percent to $18.10 per share.

The very origins of the crash may be found --not on Wall Street but K-street. K Street is best compared to older portions of LA's Santa Monica boulevard, a less glamorous section of the nation's movie capital where various 'talents' are marketed, bid on and sold. On K-Street, the government whores itself out to major lobbyists by way of its pimps --think tanks, lobbyists, and advocacy groups. The difference is this: on Santa Monica Boulevard, 'John' has to pay his own way if he wishes to 'play'. On K-street, a good time is had by all, but it's you who gets the bill. When the bill is not paid, the crash ensues.

Am I being unfair to the 'exiting' (hopefully) administration? Impossible! It is not possible to express the depths of pure evil this administration has indulged in your name!

First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.

Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.

But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.

The best evidence that the bailout is a cover for a yet another huge transfer, a 'spreading around of wealth, to Bush's 'base' may be found in the following letter by the CEO of a so-called 'healthy' bank.

There is no panic on Main Street and in sound financial institutions. The problems are in high-risk financial institutions and on Wall Street. ...

The primary beneficiaries of the proposed rescue are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. ... Treasury is totally dominated by Wall St. investment bankers. They do not have knowledge of the commercial banking industry. Therefore they cannot be relied on to objectively assess all the implications of government policy on all financial intermediaries. The decision to protect the money funds is a clear example of a material lack of insight into the risk to the entire financial system.

A financial 911? Perhaps! By any name, the Bush crime family in cooperation with the GOP, the MIC, K-street, and Wall Street have just sold out the future of every American except those of the very, very, very, very rich.

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?